Reasons why companies and brands need to respect Dads

by Daddy Mojo on March 7, 2012

The first annual Dad 2.0 conference is happening in Austin this week. One topic that will certainly be discussed is dads, brands, advertising and how they can rectify reality with what really happens. OK, in my ideal world that is how brands would start to work with dads. In reality the conversation at Dad 2.0, relative to advertising and brands may be all about Huggies and not for the reasons they would like.

A new study by The Parenting Group (publisher of Parenting Magazine) and Edelman conducted just in time for Dad 2.0 sheds new light on just what dads do when it comes to shopping.

An overwhelming majority of the dads surveyed at least split the grocery shopping evenly with their spouse. For couples that have an oldest child 3-5 only 10% of the respondents don’t participate in the grocery shopping. So 90% of the dads with a child in that age group are assisting with the grocery shopping, go dads.

Source: AdAge article on Bonnier Corp.’s Parenting Group and Edelman

The article on AdAge doesn’t list all of the survey and states that there were some disconnects. When the questions were worded more broadly the men and women answered the questions differently.

One key takeaway is that, of the dads that said that they did the grocery shopping; only 32% said that their dads did their grocery shopping when they were young.

As I said in my earlier post, I’m not one to complain about a situation when I’m part of a fringe group in the minority. However, what that survey points out is that dads who do the shopping are not a fringe group anymore. They’re part of a majority of the grocery shopping decision for the family now.

Excellent post. I’m going to say this. Retailers, stores, chains, are fighting the growing trend of fathers doing the household shopping. Fighting it tooth and nail. Why? Because men simply don’t buy as much as women do. Men don’t spend an entire afternoon ‘shopping’. They aren’t as apt to make frivolous purchases or last minute emotional buys. Men buy the basics and that’s usually it. No one need look any further than a man’s closet and compare it to a woman’s. That nuance applies to everything in the household, not just skirts and high heels.

The worst thing that could happen to the retailer is for men to become point on all family shopping decisions.

We just finished a panel on this topic, Trey at #Dad2Summit, and we believe dads are becoming relevant and a smaller force…the belief is that dads will never equal moms in brand-power and that is okay, given the differences in what and who we are…

Why do dads spend so much time worrying about our perception? Do the shopping, raise the kid, that’s what matters. Moms are always going to occupy the prime spot when it comes to parenting, the biological connection can never be trumped. Personally, I don’t mind having the element of surprise as the “secret” parent. We have the advantage of stealth!